Funding needed to make NSW jails smoke-free

Calls for planning to start now if NSW jails are to go smoke-free in 2014.

Ian Waldie: Getty Images

Pressure is mounting on the New South Wales government to fully fund a ban on smoking in jails, with prison guards unable to keep cigarettes out of a new state-of-the-art maximum security wing.

Earlier this year the 100 million dollar maximum security wing - designed to be smoke-free - opened at Cessnock Jail in the Hunter Valley.

Corrective Services Commissioner Peter Severin announced plans to phase in a total smoking ban in the new wing, which would eventually roll out across New South Wales.

But Public Service Association spokesman, Stewart Little says it will not work until cigarettes are declared contraband.

"It's difficult, I mean the prison environment is quite conducive to smoking," he said.

He says if the state government wants to meet its target of jails being smoke-free by July 2014, there needs to be a 12-month lead in phase and funding for nicotine patches and other support measures.

"Overseas experience shows you really need to plan and resource a smoke-free environment within the prison system, what we've called for is a 12 month lead in," he said.

"What we'd like to see is appropriate resources, things like patches and programs.

"What you're talking about is turning tobacco into contraband, so obviously that would create a lot of challenges for us.

"It's something that concerns us, because there has been discussion that by July 1, 2014 all the prisons across the state, there's 27 of them, would go smoke-free.

"You've got 10,000 inmates in those jails, so if we're going to have a 12 month lead in, we'd need to know whether the government is fair dinkum and whether they're going to provide the resources to Justice Health."

Corrective Services says creating smoke-free jails is a complex initiative that is being planned in conjunction with the Justice Health & Forensic Mental Health Network.